Cuvaison sells original Calistoga winery

Cuvaison Estate Wines has sold its original winery and tasting room in Calistoga to a St. Helena real estate development firm, consolidating operations at its facility in the Carneros region.

Criswell-Radovan LLC acquired the Calistoga winery and tasting room from the Schmidheiny family, which purchased Cuvaison in 1979. Financial terms were not disclosed.

The Schmidheiny family retained the Cuvaison brand, which was moved in 2004 to a new winery constructed on the family’s Carneros estate. For the last decade, the family continued to operate the Calistoga winery as a custom-crush facility and tasting room.

“The Calistoga property was a wonderful home for our Cuvaison wines, general offices and tasting room for many years. After 10 years of operating two locations, we decided to focus our attention on our Carneros winery and tasting room as well as our Brandlin estate on Mount Veeder. We were delighted to find a buyer whose desire was to maintain the current status of the Calistoga production team and custom crush clients,” Cuvaison President Jay Schuppert said in a statement.

Criswell-Radovan intends to rename the property Fairwinds Estate Winery and will continue to provide custom-crush services to existing clients with the same production team. The company, founded by William Criswell and Robert Radovan, spearheaded the Calistoga Ranch resort project and is renovating the Cal Neva Resort & Casino in north Lake Tahoe, which it acquired in 2013.

Zepponi & Company represented Cuvaison in the deal.